


Light and Heat

by TeaandBanjo



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Minor Character Death, Whumptober 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-27
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-08-08 14:20:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16431050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeaandBanjo/pseuds/TeaandBanjo
Summary: Saul Micheals needs to open a book.  What happens next?





	1. Saul Micheals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Saul Micheals needs to open a book.

Saul kept the broken handle of the white porcelain teacup tucked in the palm of his hand.  He had properly apologized for dropping the cup, and helped Sylvia sweep up the pieces.

She was back at her cataloguing, which she had so kindly suspended for  a cup of tea, and some intimate conversation. He would miss her.

Sometimes, after too much wine, he had wished that he belonged in Melbourne, this big city next to the Pacific ocean.  It was easy to find books, or music, or chemicals for his experiments. It had been easy to find a lady with sympathetic ear, to sooth the frustrations of a chemical reaction gone wrong, or the loneliness of a man a long time away from his wife.

_Find the book._

The book of songs and poetry was right where he expected it.  The rich brown of the leather spine was easily visible on the next to bottom shelf, where he could pull it out.  His heart sang. The miracle of chemistry he had discovered would be transformed into cash. Like gold, here in this land half a world away from his childhood.  Gold for the goal of a new Zion.

_Still, it is a shame to spoil the book._

He tested the fragment of teacup against his finger.  It was sharp, and drew blood. _Good._

Saul considered slicing off the spine, but Miss Leigh would need to replace the book, afterwards.  He opened the front cover. If he cut the pages free from the inside, he could get to that space, and no one would be the wiser until the book was opened.   She’d be able to repair it, then glue in a new endpaper.

He drew the sharp edge against the fold where the pages joined the cover.  Just a little slice. He reached a finger in to see if he could reach inside, without any more damage to the book.  

White dust coated his finger.  

_This is not gold._

He tried to grip the broken handle again, to make another, longer slice into the book. 

_My hand is shaking._

He would hate to say goodbye to the proper, Australian, Miss Leigh.  She was lovely and devoted to learning in a way poor Mari had never had the opportunity to be. 

_Mari, my love, in Israel._

More white powder coated his fingers.

He was feeling warm.   _The warm sun of Israel._  The heat of the equatorial sun was warming him already.

His muscles would not obey him.  Everything was shaking now, and his legs folded under him.   _This isn’t fear._

“Try not to resist!”  pleaded a woman’s voice.

_Mari_ , he wanted to say, but he was gasping for air, and the world was buzzing around him.

There were shelves of books rising to the ceiling above him.  

_The university in Jerusalem, I will study the Kabbalah._

_I feel the heat, Mari.  I see the light._

_I will study the light of creation.  Oh, the heat._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a little bit of a fix-it. On one hand, Saul has a paper cut on his finger, where the poison entered. On the other hand, he was using a knife to damage a book, but he didn't have a knife nearby when he died, he had a fragment of teacup. We will just have to assume that Miss Leigh re-shelved the book while Saul was fitting on the library floor.
> 
> (I apologize for not doing my research. The symptoms of wolfsbane/aconite poisoning may or may not actually include sensations of heat. However, I expect that none of my readers will actually have experienced the effects of a fatal dose, so no one will be able to correct me.)


	2. Miss Sylvia Leigh

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Miss Leigh is spending some time as a guest, at City South.

“I have done wrong,” she whispered to herself.  The only reply was the heavy, irregular snoring of someone in one of the other cells.

It was dark, in the holding cell at the police station.  The cot she was sitting on smelled of piss, and mildew. Yesterday, someone else was here.  Tomorrow, who knows?

Tomorrow was always the problem.  She’d let herself become attached to a married man.   She had always known that one day he would be done here in Melbourne, and he’d board a ship and sail back to his wife.

_Except, that wasn’t how it ended.  A fit. On the floor, among the shelves in the library.  Poor Saul._

She made herself breath normally, past the feelings that threatened to choke her.  

Air into her lungs, then air back out.  It was how breathing worked. There were books on the subject, in her shop.  Medical textbooks were at the top of the white-painted bookshelf near the door to the back alley.  She hadn’t dusted that shelf in over a week. She was being very careful not to look under the cot where she sat.

She could fix that mistake.  She would dust those books, as soon as she could.  If that door would open. All her other mistakes, could be fixed.  The books could be dusted, she could go visit Mum, she could sit down and mend her stockings properly.

The sound of snoring stopped, and and was replaced by the sound of a fit of coughing.  

Miss Leigh reflected on the logical impossibility of regretting Saul, and regretting the absence of Saul at the same time.

_I want to go home._

Home was under the sign that said “Books and Periodicals”.   

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I did research. The book "Raisins and Almonds" lists the lady as "Sylvia Lee." Her first name is never mentioned in the episode, and IMDB identifies the character as "Miss Leigh."
> 
> I split the difference


	3. Miss Sylvia Leigh, again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Miss Leigh needs to do some cleanup, after the events of "Rasins and Almonds." The episode is over, and she needs to plan for her future.

Miss Leigh was wearing rubber gloves, as the fur-clad lady detective had recommended.  It seemed the white powder that had killed Saul was mostly gone, but she would have to make sure there were no more traces, either on the shelves, the books or the floor.

The bookshelf was upright again, and she was in the midst of the slow process of wiping down each book and putting it on the correct shelf.  Shakespeare was finally re-shelved, except for the one heavy volume that had torn itself apart when it fell.

The afternoon was going by quickly, although none of her patrons had returned.  A long afternoon in her stacks was slowly displacing the memory of the small green cell at City South.  

Maybe she did need to get out more.  She would find shelf space for more travel books.  A steamer to the Americas? A tour of the Holy Land?  She could take her own pictures, not just see the black and white images in books.

Miss Leigh stood up, slowly, feeling her knees creak.   _Is it time already?_  She peeled off the gloves and dropped them onto the pile of dusty cloths.  She would burn them. It was the only way to be rid of the poison.

It was dark, upstairs in her tiny kitchen.  There were a few embers left from the morning, and she added a little coal to the firebox.  As the fuel caught, the flames cast a flickering light on the faded paint. She threw in the dusty rags, that might or might not be poisoned, and added the gloves for good measure.  She closed the stove, and her kitchen was dark again.

The bell on the door jangled as she trod down the stairs.  There was dark-haired young woman looking nervously out from under a beige straw hat.  The woman shifted her purse from hand to hand and tugged at her coat for a moment.

“Miss Leigh?”  Her voice was soft, her accent local.

“Sylvia Leigh,” she replied.  “Are you here to see me about the assistant librarian position?”

“Yes, Miss.”  She clutched the handle of her bag.  “I’m Alice Hartley. I have references.”

“Come in, hang up your coat.”  She led the way to her desk and the corner with the electric kettle.  “I’ll make you a cup of tea, and we can chat.”

While Miss Leigh went to fill the kettle, the visitor hung coat and hat.   She returned to find the young lady sitting on the very edge of her chair. “Ask me anything,” she whispered, voice tight.

“How do you take your tea, Miss Hartley?”  Miss Leigh kept her voice low, even in the empty library.  She plugged in the kettle, and listened to its familiar noises as it heated.

“Two sugars, Miss, please.”  Her brow was furrowed. Clearly not the question she was expecting.

“What was your last position?”  Miss Leigh decided that the expected questions might be the place to start.

“Upstairs maid.”  Alice Hartley’s eyes were big as saucers.  “Then the master died, and his wife was convicted of the murder.”

Miss Leigh spooned tea leaves into the brown pot.  The kettle was at a boil now, so she added the water and flipped over the glass egg timer, setting it on the dark wood of her desk.

The two of them watched the sand flow through the glass.

“The library has run my whole life for too long, now.  I want to train an assistant, so I’ll be able to travel, some, in the future.”  Miss Leigh wasn’t sure if it was the right thing to confess, but the young woman seemed sympathetic.

“I don’t know about how to run a library.”  Miss Hartley’s hands were clasped together in front of her.

“No one does, to start with.”  Miss Leigh tried a small smile.  It was unfamiliar. “Did you have a favorite book, when you were a child?”

“My gran gave me a copy of ‘Alice in Wonderland’, when I was eight,” said Miss Hartley, who looked even more girlish for a moment.  “I still have it, but the front cover has come off.”

“I have a few books like that, too.”  She thought about the small shelf next to her bed.  The 101 Arabian Nights, the Sherlock Holmes books that she had read too many times..

They talked childhood books with quiet voices in the dark space.

The last grain of sand was at the bottom, now, part of  the tiny dune of white sand in the timer glass. Miss Leigh poured the tea into two cups, added sugar, and passed one over.

“After we have tea, I will show you how to use the card catalog.  You can see if we have any other books by Lewis Carroll, and find where they are shelved.   A first lesson in a library, as it were.”

“Am I hired?”  Miss Hartley’s eyes lit up.  “I’m sure I can help with some cleaning, to start with.”

“If it doesn't suit you, in a few months, you will be able to find something more exciting, I am sure.”  Miss Leigh shrugged. “I think you will be able to teach me a thing or two about cleaning windows. It always looks so gray in here when they are dirty.  We really need more light.”

Miss Hartley drank her tea,  and appeared deep in thought for several minutes.

“I think this will suit me perfectly.  The quiet and the books.”

“Tomorrow, you will bring your Alice in Wonderland, and I will show you how to mend it.”  Sylvia Leigh sipped her tea and let it warm her.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alice Hartley probably doesn't want to go back to being a maid. Maybe a library will suit her better.
> 
> There is nothing in any other episode that says this didn't happen, right?


End file.
